


you only get what you grieve

by safertohateher



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Eating Disorders, F/F, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Rape/Non-con, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safertohateher/pseuds/safertohateher
Summary: "This isn't helping," Betty says.Archie draws a thumb over her mouth. It comes away wet. "Is it hurting?"Betty thinks of her aching knees, the bruises Archie bites into her, and shakes her head. Then she thinks of Veronica."In a way," she says.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been stalked by a serial killer, but I imagine it fucks you up pretty bad. I guess this is me imagining. Fair warning: I wrote this in like three hours and so it might not be entirely logical. I have vague plans for a second part, heavy on the beronica and also maybe featuring a threesome. Because why not.
> 
> Content warnings for eating disorders and self-harming behaviour (canon for Betty).

 

They catch the Black Hood on a Tuesday. It rains for six days straight afterward; Betty stays up most nights watching Archie watch her through the wet slick of their bedroom windows. He cracks hers open when the world is closing, quietly inching towards the thought of morning. 

He finds her with nails in her palms and blood on her sheets, but he doesn't kiss her again. Not until Betty wakes with a gunshot in her ears, makes a sound like she's bleeding. Archie tries to swallow it. His mouth closes over the wound of hers, and licks.

When Archie sleeps, Betty knows he dreams of a pulled trigger with the shape of his fingerprint.

Archie tries, but the blood on Betty's sheets persists.

 

 

The thing about the kissing is that it isn't what she wants. The first time, in the car, minutes before the grip of her hands on a shovel tore the scabs clean open, Betty thinks she wanted to feel safe. _Us, in a booth at Pop's_. (Betty barely remembers.) But it didn't work, not really, not the way she wanted. Even in Archie's arms, the Black Hood dead in a pool of blood ten feet away, there was fear. Creeping between the bones of her neck, a chill in her spinal fluid.

So Betty tries Archie's mouth on her cunt, tries working her tongue over his cock. Her knees either side of his hips, bearing down. Her knees either side of her own shoulders, stretched and full with him. Archie's come on her hand, in her mouth, _inside_.

Betty tells him one night; waits for his fist to loosen over her ponytail, his cock to finish spilling in the back of her throat.

"This isn't helping," she says.

Archie draws a thumb over her mouth. It comes away wet. "Is it hurting?"

Betty thinks of her aching knees, the bruise Archie makes of her clit when he bites, and shakes her head. Then she thinks of Veronica. 

"In a way," she says, but mouths at his cock again, finished talking.

 

 

Betty chases safety in other ways. The prescriptions her mother keeps filling, Vixens' practice, strawberry milkshakes with Veronica on Thursday nights. Veronica always holds her hand, eyes the other like it's already bleeding on the formica. Betty could pretend it's about Jughead, who sits four booths down across from Toni, but Veronica knows better. 

"You know," she says, playing with Betty's knuckles, "I bet there's a Lifetime movie about this." 

"Small town girl versus serial killer?"

"You are no small town girl, Betty Cooper."

"What am I?" It sounds too existentialist for the neon lights of Pop's, the strawberry slices on the rim of her milkshake glass. Veronica takes her other hand. 

"You're the B to my V. My pre-destined bestie."

Archie had told her about that. "The train to the rest of your life?"

Veronica grins. "Soulmate material if I ever saw it."

Weeks ago, it would have lit Betty up from the ribcage out. But Veronica looks tired, and Betty still aches between her thighs where Veronica's ex-boyfriend fucked her all night. Still, she goes with Veronica to the Pembrooke, and they watch Lifetime movies until three am. Betty imagines Archie on her window ledge, staring at her empty bed.

She falls asleep holding Veronica's hands, and the sheets stay clean.

 

 

Betty doesn't notice for nearly three weeks, and even then Veronica has to tell her. They're alone in the locker room after Vixens' practice, shirts off. Veronica is staring, which isn't unusual, but Betty worries it has less to do with feelings they don't talk about than the bruises Archie sucks into her skin that concealer can't quite properly cover –

"You've lost weight." 

Betty blinks at the lines of her ribs and hip bones. _Too Betty Draper season five_ still hurts over a year later, so Betty says "thanks" and Veronica's eyes turn sad.

"No, B." Her voice is a little raw, and Betty offers her hand before Veronica reaches for it. "I don't ever see you eat." 

Betty swallows pills in the morning and Archie most nights, but in between – she isn’t sure. Not except for milkshakes on Thursday nights.

"Is it on purpose?" Veronica asks. She's wearing her pearls, but Betty can hear them plinking on the lino in the third floor girls' bathroom.

"No," she says, and it feels honest until Veronica hugs her, curls her hands over Betty's bare shoulder blades, and then it just hurts.

 

 

Veronica must say something to Archie, because he starts leaving candy in her locker, brings her milkshakes from Pop's before school. Once, when they're studying for a chem test in his room, he goes downstairs to make them cocoa and comes back with just the can of whipped cream. He takes off his shirt, draws a line from his chest to his jeans. His grin is almost desperate.

Betty can't laugh, but she licks him clean. He hardens as she does it, and she palms him through his jeans. "Do you want me to suck it off your cock?"

She doesn’t say it to turn him on – it's a genuine, almost scathing question about what the fuck he's playing at – but Archie groans like he's about to come. "Fuck, Betty, yes."

She doesn’t. Betty pulls him down to the floor instead, pushes his boxers and jeans down and her panties to the side under her skirt, and sinks onto him, barely wet. Archie gasps like it hurts. Betty plants her feet by his hips for leverage. It makes her stomach swell, cuts into her view of Archie's cock splitting her open. 

She doesn’t come, and afterwards, when she's cleaning up in the bathroom, she runs the water so Archie won't hear her vomit.

 

 

Just like that, it's on purpose. Betty swallows pills, and she swallows Archie, but she leaves the candy in her locker and the milkshakes in Pop's vintage glasses. At first, Veronica stares her down until she drinks, all perfect arched eyebrows and poorly concealed panic. But only until she realises Betty leaves for the bathroom straight after she's done, comes back to their booth smelling like peppermint with teeth marks in the knuckles of her right hand.

The first time, Veronica cries. Betty dries the tears with her sleeve. 

"Treating the symptom there, B," Veronica says, holds Betty's hand to her wet cheek.

"I don't want to be the cause." She thinks of the Black Hood's first letter, his phone calls, Veronica's face the night Betty cut her out. "Remember when I called you a bad person?"

Veronica's breath hitches. "You didn't mean that."

She didn't, but Betty thinks it would hurt less if it were true.

 

 

Sometimes, Archie just holds her, and Betty lets him. She counts his breaths and his heart beats and he counts her ribs, presses his fingers to them as hard as he did the trigger on the Black Hood's gun. They end up in her underwear anyway, pressing harder still. 

"You're my favourite person in the whole world," he tells her, and she comes like that means what it used to.

 

 

Cheryl kicks Betty off the squad after she faints at Vixens practice, twice. There's zero bite to it, and when Cheryl finishes by saying, "I think you should get some help," Betty snaps.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" She pulls off her cheer shirt and throws it in Cheryl's face. Betty can't look, but she knows what she looks like, and Cheryl, Cheryl looks like she did when Betty threatened to kill her last September, and Betty, Betty feels like she did when she made the threat.

"I'm sorry," Cheryl says, and she's so quick to cry, and Betty wants to slap her, wants to slick the blood from her palms across Cheryl's pale skin and red lipstick –

Veronica catches her hand mid-air. Cheryl flees.

"Since when was this about Cheryl?" Betty wishes Veronica sounded angry.

"It isn't."

"Then why are you trying to hurt her?"

"I thought it might feel good."

Veronica doesn't ask, because she already knows, and Betty is glad not to have to say it: _nothing feels good anymore._

 

 

Her mom notices, but then Betty isn't careful – not with throwing away her birth control pill box, or the used condoms she and Archie rarely bother with, or the lunches her mom packs every day. Betty comes home from school one Tuesday to find Alice sitting on her bed, Betty's wastepaper basket between her knees. She looks worse than when she found a gun in Betty's sweater drawer.

"What is the meaning of this, Elizabeth?" It's a demand, but not by much. Betty gives herself away by glancing at Archie's window, even though he's at football practice, even though she knows what Alice will do, because it's no worse than anything else.

But Betty miscalculates. Instead of demanding she exorcise Archie from her life, her mom sighs around a knot of tears. "Oh, Betty. What about Jughead and Veronica?"

The shot lands, and when Betty blinks, incredulous, her eyes are leaking. "Why aren't you yelling?"

Alice sets the basket on the floor. She stares at the rotting sandwiches and fruit, the condoms and their wrappers. Betty isn't even embarrassed.

"You're scaring me, baby."

Betty laughs. It must be nice, she thinks, when the thing that scares you is a sixteen year old girl.

 

 

Alice takes Betty to get tested. Her doctor takes four vials of blood, eyes the bones in her arms and under the collar of her shirt. She asks Betty about body image issues, what she's eating, if she exercises. Betty tells her she doesn't want to talk about it.

"Elizabeth," her mom pleads. She has made fists with her hands.

She leaves the doctor's office with a pamphlet on eating disorder recovery. When they pull into the driveway, it's spotted with blood, but the steering wheel is clean under Alice's hands.

 

 

In February, Veronica almost catches them. Archie is on his knees in the Blue and Gold office, his head under Betty's skirt. He's got three fingers inside her and his mouth is closed tightly around her clit, sucking. He adds teeth, and Betty comes so hard she feels faint. Archie lets her underwear fall back into place, wipes his mouth, and Betty's just about to reach for his zipper when the door they forgot to lock swings open.

Veronica is carrying black coffee she knows Betty will drink and a muffin she knows Betty won't touch. "Oh," she says, "Archie. Hey."

Betty's panties are soaked through. Looking at Veronica – the high hem on her Kate Spade dress, her mauve lipstick – makes her cunt throb.

"Hey, Ronnie," Archie says, almost into his hand, like he thinks Veronica will smell Betty on him. After he leaves, before Veronica can say anything, Betty snatches the muffin from her and takes a huge bite.

Veronica's smile is brilliant. Betty keeps the muffin down, as penance.

 

 

Betty finds her mom's research on a Thursday. She should be at Pop's with Veronica, but she has a history project to finish. It's an excuse, but it's also falling asleep in class and straight after school and straight after sex and having neither the time nor the energy for the Spanish Civil War. 

She goes to Alice's office to print off her notes. There's a pile of papers next to the keyboard. The first one is headed _Anorexia._ Betty flips through the others.

 _Bulimia_. Alice has added two question marks by the title. _Post traumatic stress disorder._ Underlined. _Bipolar disorder_. More question marks. Her mom has highlighted symptoms on every page: _lack of appetite, not eating, acting out of character, nightmares, self-harm, hyperarousal…_

Betty counts forty-three question marks. She takes a highlighter and draws an asterisk next to anything that resonates. When she's done, the pages are bright with a constellation of fluorescent pink stars.

Betty tears them up. Her palms are next.

 

 

A week later, Veronica drags Betty to the Pembrooke after school. Betty is too exhausted to fight her, but when she steps into the apartment to find her parents, her sister, and anyone who could even remotely be considered her friend arranged in a careful circle on the Lodge's antique furniture, Betty finds the energy to try.

When Betty pushes, Veronica doesn't move. She doesn't even wobble on her four inch heels. Veronica, who is small enough to fit under Betty's chin when they hug. Instead, she takes Betty's hand, guides her to one of the empty chairs. "We just want to help you, B," she says, and doesn't let go.

Alice is holding new papers, already crying. Archie is bouncing his leg, not looking at her. Kevin has bitten his lip bloody. Jughead and Cheryl are staring at her, close to horrified. Then there's Josie and Valerie and Melody and Ethel and Toni and Midge and Moose and even Reggie –

Betty recognises the feeling as panic. It makes her head spin, and her head is always, already spinning… she feels dizzy, and sick, and for a moment she thinks she's going to black out but then she yanks Veronica close enough to kiss her.

Veronica lets her, like Betty knew she would, like Betty has always known she would, from the very first second Veronica looked at her in Pop's, awed, shy, smitten. 

When Betty pulls back, the delight on Veronica's face is blinding. "What was that for?" 

What Betty wants to say and what Veronica wants to hear are the exact same thing, but what she says instead is, "Just levelling the playing field."

Archie's leg stops. 

"What do you mean?" Veronica asks. Archie says her name, once, low and pleading, and that's all it takes for Veronica to get it. Her smile falls as quickly as Betty built it. "You guys are – ?"

"It's not what you think, Ronnie – "

Betty laughs. "It's exactly what you think, V. Worse, probably."

"Why are you doing this, Betty?" Archie hisses. "Why are you doing any of this?"

"She thought it might feel good," Veronica says, and lets go of her hand.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something like healing happens in this part. I think I'll write one more to let the angst settle a little.
> 
> Content warning for vague references to the sexual abuse of a minor (canon Archie and Grundy).

The worst part is, Veronica doesn't even kick her out – just wipes her eyes with her free hands and recites a clearly rehearsed but clearly sincere plea for Betty to seek help. Before she passes the figurative talking pillow to Alice, Veronica pauses, breathing unsteady, and Betty is sure that Veronica had planned to say _I can't ride the train without you_ or something else that would have broken Betty's heart worse than her silence.

It's the worst two hours of Betty's life. Archie won't say anything, Jughead looks like he wants to punch them both, and Cheryl is crying worse than Veronica, who still hasn't taken her hand back. When it's over, they all look at Betty. She knows what they want, but she knows she can't give it to them.

She tells them about the Black Hood instead. She sticks to the facts, like she's narrating the statement she made to Sheriff Keller. She talks about Fox Forest, and Nick St Clair, and Svenson's finger.

The gun to her head. The shovel in her hands. Archie in the ground.

Archie runs to the bathroom to vomit. If there was anything in Betty's stomach, she'd follow him. Instead the panic makes her sweat, and cry, and pant. She remembers a highlighted symptom from Alice's lists: _re-experiencing_.

Betty dreams of gunshots and wakes in a world that's somehow louder still. "I don't want him to see me," she says, and the broken hearts are easier to count than her ribs.

 

 

Archie's sitting on the honest-to-God sofa the Lodges have in their sprawling guest bathroom. Betty splashes water on her face and ignores the feel of his eyes on her.

"Why did you kiss her?" Archie asks. Betty is reminded, suddenly, that Archie loves Veronica, too. That Veronica loves them both. That, ostensibly, neither of them love each other.

"I thought she'd stop caring," Betty says. Even now, she wants to get on her knees for Archie; she knows Veronica will give her one minute, max, before following. Maybe Archie's cock in Betty's mouth will be enough to make her leave.

"You don’t really want that." His words and eyes are incisive. "And telling Ronnie isn't enough to make me stop caring, either."

Veronica finds Betty in Archie's lap, sobbing into his Henley, more naked than he's ever seen her.

 

 

There's a psychiatrist, and a nutritionist, and more weigh-ins than Betty has ever done herself. Alice cries when Betty pulls off her sweater at the first one. The scales tell her she's lost a quarter of herself in nine weeks. _Is that all?_ Betty thinks, and maybe says out loud, since her mom doesn't stop crying when the sweater goes back on.

Betty and Archie see the same psychiatrist on different days, except Tuesdays, when they go together. It's harder to talk to Dr Wyatt with Archie there. It's not something they do anymore. Betty knows exactly the pattern to drag her tongue on Archie's cock to make him come in the five minutes they have between classes, but this is a muscle memory she has lost.

It means they try to sabotage each other. "Tell her about your dad getting shot," Betty says.

" _You_ tell her about your hands."

"Grundy," Betty counters, because she knows even though he's never told her.

Archie's jaw tightens. "Chuck."

They keep sniping at each other, avoid avoid avoid, and Dr Wyatt lets them. _Your mom._ Your _mom. Polly. Hiram. Chic._

Neither of them ever mentions Veronica.

 

 

Every Tuesday, before Archie drives them home, they fuck in the car. On her back in the backseat, her knees clench Archie's hips, but his careful hands on her waist always bruise worse. Betty makes him wear a condom now, and considers that progress.

One Tuesday in April, Archie won't stop kissing her. His hands shake on her ribs. Their session had been fine, Betty thinks. They talked about school. Betty had said she thought she saw Svenson sometimes, lurking in the corners of the girls' locker room.

"Archie." She steadies the hand closest to her heart. "What is it?"

It takes him five minutes to say, "Grundy took my virginity in her car."

It's the closest he's come to admitting it. That Grundy took something from him. Betty feels sick. She sits up so she can hold him. It takes Archie another five minutes to start crying, but he doesn't stop for forty-five. Betty doesn't tell him it's okay. 

The Tuesday after that, they bring Vegas. He rests his head in Archie's lap as he tells Dr Wyatt about Grundy, and sleeps in the backseat on the drive home.

 

 

Alice makes every meal to the exact specifications set by Betty's nutritionist. Hal works overtime at the Register to make up for the hours Alice spends meticulously measuring ingredients and sitting two feet away from Betty at the dining table to make sure she eats. She isn't allowed to the bathroom for an hour afterwards, and even then Polly goes with her. It makes Betty's skin itch. She wants to do something crazy, like wet herself while they watch HBO as her mom counts out sixty minutes.

She settles for making her hands bleed. Alice gives up trying to get the stains out of the sofa, but it's all she concedes.

At school, Betty trades Alice for Veronica, who matches her bite for bite until her lunchbox is empty. It means they have detention almost daily for missing the start of the next period. Betty is refused the bathroom pass unless she is _insistent_ , and Veronica or Toni or Cheryl fucking Blossom has to accompany her. It's her mom's rule, Betty knows. She follows it and keeps bleeding on the sofa and tries not to feel guilty.

The cuts on her knuckles heal, but her palms are worse than ever. Veronica watches the water run pink as Betty washes her hands. 

"Why do you do that?" Veronica is still soft with Betty, if more distant than she ever has been. Betty has a lot of sharp edges still, she guesses.

"I'm not allowed anything else."

"What about Archie?" Veronica asks, and her voice breaks enough that Betty knows his is not the name she meant to say.

 

 

Alice lets Betty spend Thursday nights at the Pembrooke. Betty figures it's because her mom knows she can't fuck Archie if she's with Veronica. Betty has to eat dinner at home first, then wait out the hour, then climb into Veronica's town car because she's not allowed to walk.

Hiram and Hermione weren't at the intervention, but the way they look at her, Betty is sure they know everything that happened. They don’t try to feed her like Kevin and Archie's dads, and Betty likes them just fine.

In Veronica's room, they watch Lifetime movies until three am. Veronica always cries, even before the sad parts. It means Betty picks at the popcorn Veronica makes for them, even though the salted butter stings the cuts in her hands. There is always space between them on Veronica's bed. Betty doesn't think it's big enough for Archie to fit, but she knows he's why it's there.

She and Archie go a week without having sex, and that Thursday Betty rolls across the space to put her arm around Veronica. She smells salty, and Betty is sure she would taste it, but that's where her certainty ends. After a moment, Veronica curls into her, tucks a cautious hand over Betty's hip.

"I'm sorry I keep hurting you," Betty says, and it's the truest thing she's said since Nick St Clair's name.

When Veronica talks, her mouth moves on Betty's neck. "I know you don't mean it."

"You're my favourite person in the whole world, V."

Veronica nods. "So why didn't you come to me?"

"I think I love you too much."

"Oh, Betty," she says, and it feels like a kiss.

 

 

Betty does kiss her, the next morning. Veronica's blackout blinds keep the room dark and still while they change for school. Veronica watches Betty undress from the bed, and this time Betty hasn’t bothered to cover Archie's bruises. Veronica stands to trace a purple line of them on her collarbone.

"He was never this rough with me."

"You probably didn’t deserve it."

Veronica frowns. "Do you want it?"

"What I deserve?"

"The pain."

Betty shows her hands. "Seems like it."

Veronica pauses, then takes them. Betty's breath comes as a shaky sigh. "Not everything has to hurt all the time, Betty."

Betty decides to test the theory. Veronica kisses back as gently as her fingers read Betty's palms. It doesn’t hurt, not even a little. For once, Betty doesn't feel the need to make it.

 

 

When Veronica takes off Betty's underwear and touches two fingers to her clit, Veronica is the one who gasps. Betty's so wet she can push three of Veronica's fingers inside and still nothing hurts. It makes Betty's knees buckle, her chin catching over Veronica's shoulder.

"Are you okay, B?"

"Please," Betty says.

Veronica lays Betty down on the bed. Kisses her with tongue but without teeth. Slips two fingers back inside, moves her thumb on Betty's clit like she did her chin at their cheerleading try-outs. Which is to say, barely.

"V." Betty cards her fingers through Veronica's hair, sucks a kiss that could bruise into her bottom lip. "It doesn't have to hurt, but – I need – "

Veronica looks down at her. Betty wonders if she still sees bones. "I don’t want to break you."

Yes, then. Betty takes Veronica's thumb and index finger and pinches her clit between them. Her cunt clenches around Veronica's fingers. "You won't."

They’re late for school.

 

 

Betty spends the weekend at the Pembrooke and ignores Archie's texts. They trade Lifetime movies for new Disney and only half-watch, already kissing by the time the credits start. Betty goes down on Veronica with Beauty and the Beast playing in the background, just loud enough to cover the sounds Veronica makes.

Betty doesn't know what she's doing, not really. Finds herself spreading Veronica open with her index and middle fingers, licks between the vee to close her lips around her clit and hum. Veronica makes a strangled sound.

Betty lifts her head. "Quiet, V."

Veronica blinks down at her, pupils blown. She presses her thumb into the dip of Betty's collarbone, tucks four fingers against the back of her skull. When she pushes down, Betty's tongue meets her halfway, doling out hard, blunt licks.

"Fuck, Betty." Her eyes are still open, watching Betty darkly. "Is it – " Betty closes her fingers and pushes them inside, and Veronica whines. "God, _Betty_. Is it on purpose?"

"Is what?" Betty stops to ask, then sucks her clit as an apology.

"You touch me like he used to," Veronica says, and comes.


End file.
